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Just a quick comparison with the Oppo vs the LX91 and 5000ES i already posted over in the UK forum but thought it might be welcome here as well.

How does the BDP-83 fair on build quality against Sony/Pioneer? very well indeed actually not as heavy as the 5000 no or as a nicer finish as the LX91 (built lke a tank by the way) but it's a good weight nice solid put together player.Great front plate,chrome buttons so certainly looks the part.
Sound quality.
I'm bitsream only so the amps doing the work but even so the 83 is doing everything correctly as audio performance (dynamics,clarity,LFE) is certainly on par with the LX91 and 5000ES over HDMI,this includes PCM tracks and regular DD/DTS on SD discs.
CD performance (HDMI or coaxial) posed no problems either i didn't feel i was losing out quality wise using the player instead of the LX91 or 5000 with these connections.Audio is subjective i know but i found the player superb over the 2ch outs very toe tapping punchy sound....i did a write up here.
Blu-ray PQ.
No complaints and certainly no issues in this department.BDP-83 sends Blu-ray images beautifully off the disc and is easily and i mean EASILY comparible to the high end players with Blu-ray pictures.Depth,detail,sharpness i can't see anyone disagreeing here myself.....excellent job.
DVD.
SD playback is totally different to BD with a lot more work needed to go into the presentation the BDP-83 doesn't disappoint here,images are sharp solid and very natural looking.
Betters the Sony and nicely steps ahead of the Pioneer which is amazing really considering the 91 is regarded by quite a few as reference plus of course costs over 1500 quid.
Ringing and noise is lower,clearly evident when comparing Star Wars.Detail is improved with rock solid edges without a hint of shimmering no matter how packed or busy the picture gets.
Technically the Oppo's DVD is better with scoring higher over my 3 test discs (VRS,S&M,PZ) 2.2 detection is no problem (Auto) plus you have custom deinterlacing options > the usual.....Auto Video and then Film Bias,2.2 Odd plus 2.2 Even.
1080p/24 NTSC playback is like the 91....nice and smooth.
Operation,features,speed etc.
Now this is where the player is going to cause a big stink when the region B version hits and more forum members take up the player.I'ts SUPER FAST disc loading whether BD/DVD/CD is on par (or better) than my PS3,response times,menus,chapter skip,track select all react near enough instantly......amazing.
FF/REW all work very smoothly,it really is a lovely machine to operate you don't feel your just putting up with a clunky BD player with a DVD drive slapped on it actually feels like your using a high end DVD player instead.....which i guess you are truth be told.
So with speed and operation it's in a totally different leaque to the Sony and the Pioneer.
Options are abundant and can brought up by via the Setup menu this can be done during movie playback of course.Everything is accessible (except firmware check.....i think?) on the fly,HDMI options,Secondary audio,Deep Colour change,whatever you need it's there.
Resolution,picture adjustment are lke the Pioneer one button push away,there's no "memory" settings for picture tweaking which can be stored though,so one adjust (if needed) will cover all.
Audio is sent out over all output jacks at all times so need to worry if say using analogues and then switching to optical/coaxial......no need for menu changes here.
On the above i find the player much more user friendly to use than my other players very effortless and pleasent player to operate.
I think Oppo have "already" delivered a benchmark BD player which even on early firmware clearly shows the competition a clean pair of heels.
With improvements and more features bound to come,this player is a winner and did i mention Oppo customer support quite frankly outstanding.
I like all my players but i've been so pleased with BDP-83 what with all the hype and all it's now become my reference BD player and the one to beat.

Thanks King... I'm looking at either the Oppo or the Pioneer 09. Just to get back to your response in the other thread, can you clarify dvd playback between the Oppo and the Pioneer?
You say the Oppo is better than both, but than go on to say the Oppo is smooth like the 91.

Also, in your test patterns with the Pionner, did you run the test with just 4:4:4? Or with 4:2:2?

Thanks King... I'm looking at either the Oppo or the Pioneer 09. Just to get back to your response in the other thread, can you clarify dvd playback between the Oppo and the Pioneer?
You say the Oppo is better than both, but than go on to say the Oppo is smooth like the 91.

Also, in your test patterns with the Pionner, did you run the test with just 4:4:4? Or with 4:2:2?

Thanks for your report!

Smooth with 1080p/24 playback yes (DVD) rather run the film judder free if i can.
4:4:4 and 4:2:2.

I've registered on the Oppo site, have heard nothing but was told this would be released at the end of may but frankly I'm getting weary of waiting for a mythical player to appear to other than the select chosen few who are receiving their players. I primarily want it for its dual capabiities to upscale SD as well as Blu Ray. I already own a Panasonic BD30 from a year ago but have been waiting to buy the dual purpose BD83 primarily because it does outstanding upscaling as well as well as Blu Ray playback. Does anyone have a clue how a commoner gets one of these players, probably the most pre talked about player in history?

when you always do what you've alway done, you always get what you always got.

I've registered on the Oppo site, have heard nothing but was told this would be released at the end of may but frankly I'm getting weary of waiting for a mythical player to appear to other than the select chosen few who are receiving their players. I primarily want it for its dual capabiities to upscale SD as well as Blu Ray. I already own a Panasonic BD30 from a year ago but have been waiting to buy the dual purpose BD83 primarily because it does outstanding upscaling as well as well as Blu Ray playback. Does anyone have a clue how a commoner gets one of these players, probably the most pre talked about player in history?

If you don't want to wait I saw one on ebay for $799. If you just registered on the oppo site you might have to wait at least a month. I registered in Feb and just got the invite a few days ago. I will probably get the oppo at the end of the week (if im lucky)

You will not regret waiting to get one of these players. It is everything and then some if you have read this and the EAP post.

I was not one of the 50 or 300 EAPers but did sign up in Dec '08 on their "interest" list and was in the first wave of early buyers.... Very happy that I did not go out and get a Panny or Sony player (even though these are cheaper) because of the large, existing DVD library.

This player, so far (and it's been only 8 days) has performed great and once we do get a new AVR that can carry the lossless codecs over HDMI it will get better (but the multi-channel option is not too shabby - except for SW/LFE levels).

Have yet to exploit the USB option yet or attach this to the Internet but great to know this player has those features... And, with several firmware upgrades issued to the EAP owners that fixed the vast majority of issues prior to the current-shipping units and the ease of updating, hard to beat this player....

I currently have the Pioneer 51FD for bluray and Arcam DV139 for SD and SACD Problem at the moment is that when ever I want to play SACD I need to switch the analog cables to the DV139 as I use them on the 51FD. My AVR does not have HDMI.

I was wondering how does the OPPO compares to the Acram 139 for SD and SACD?

Thanks

I'm an Arcam AVR 350 and Oppo 83/983 owner. I've owned Arcam FMJ players in the past but not the 139. I doubt there would be much of a difference with SD PQ. Marginal at best. Analog audio is another story. I haven't really dug into the 83's analog audio too much yet but my initial impressions are very good. The 83's analog output stage is excellent for a $499 player. More than impressed. I'm really wondering how Oppo is making a profit. However, I doubt it is as good as the 139 for DVD-A/SACD. It really isn't a fair comparison. The Arcam FMJ's are in another leauge for analog audio. I haven't obviously done an AB comparison, just MHO. I'd love an Arcam AVR600/Arcam139/Oppo 83 set-up. Best of all worlds. I will add the Oppo 83's analog output stage has convinced me that I'll be happy to use it for Blu-Ray HD audio and keep my AVR350. No upgrade to HD receiever needed for my tastes.

I've registered on the Oppo site, have heard nothing but was told this would be released at the end of may but frankly I'm getting weary of waiting for a mythical player to appear to other than the select chosen few who are receiving their players. I primarily want it for its dual capabiities to upscale SD as well as Blu Ray. I already own a Panasonic BD30 from a year ago but have been waiting to buy the dual purpose BD83 primarily because it does outstanding upscaling as well as well as Blu Ray playback. Does anyone have a clue how a commoner gets one of these players, probably the most pre talked about player in history?

If you are on the interest list, progress is being made to contact folks with invitations to buy. You can keep an eye on the progress through that list using the first post of this thread. It's not "up-to-the-second" accurate, but Neuromancer keeps it pretty current. Once they've invited everyone on the interest list to buy, they'll open it to everybody.

I've registered on the Oppo site, have heard nothing but was told this would be released at the end of may but frankly I'm getting weary of waiting for a mythical player to appear to other than the select chosen few who are receiving their players.

I've been following the Oppo threads and I actually think Oppo is moving very quickly in getting this player out to consumers. I don't think your wait will be much longer if you should decide to purchase no matter where you are on the reservation list. (I was invited to buy one on May 1st, but procrastinated (I wanted to hear some early reviews first) and didn't buy until May 9th which was outside my "early purchasing window" and they still processed my order...and did it quickly.)

I've had many, many DVD players (Toshiba, Panny, Philips, Onkyo, Denon, JVC, off-brand Chinese models, an Oppo 980) and many Blu ray machines (Panny BD 10, BD 30, and BD 35, and two LG BH200s) and two Toshiba HD DVD players. Having used so many players, I was pretty cynical that this new Oppo would get me excited, but it did! It's really quite a wonderful player at quite a wonderful price.

I'd say that the player is worth a little bit more of a wait for a player that is no longer mythical, but that's just my opinion.

(Oh, and the power cord fits very snugly in the socket on my player. )

I'm not sure why I should have to be invited to buy a player, "special invitation" indeed. I don't appreciate their rather elite approach to selling a player. I have a Panasonic BD30 which does a nice job with BD and an Oppo 981 for upscaling, it may not be the pinnacle but it is still very good, I just thought it might be fun to have a new player that did play both formats a touch better, but this whole invitation to buy a player, while pseudo standing in line is off putting.

when you always do what you've alway done, you always get what you always got.

I'm not sure why I should have to be invited to buy a player, "special invitation" indeed. I don't appreciate their rather elite approach to selling a player. I have a Panasonic BD30 which does a nice job with BD and an Oppo 981 for upscaling, it may not be the pinnacle but it is still very good, I just thought it might be fun to have a new player that did play both formats a touch better, but this whole invitation to buy a player, while pseudo standing in line is off putting.

You don't have to you can always buy something else or just keep what you have.The ones getting invitations at this time have been on a interest list for awhile(and well worth the wait I might add)soon they will be releasing to the public and won't have to have an invitation.

I'm not sure why I should have to be invited to buy a player, "special invitation" indeed. I don't appreciate their rather elite approach to selling a player.

Oh, I don't see it as being an elite approach at all. Oppo is a small company and their products have nowhere near the consumer saturation point of companies such as Panasonic and Sony, but they do have a very devoted user base who anxiously await whatever products they bring to market. I see it more as Oppo rewarding the faithful for following and believing in the company. I certainly don't feel like an elite customer--just one of those nerds who likes and follows the latest trends in electronics.

And on the other hand, Oppo, being a small company, was taking somewhat of risk by releasing a Blu ray player in this particular price range when the giants were releasing Blu ray players that were several hundreds of dollars less. It seems like the demand for the player was greater than what they initially anticipated it might be, but they played it smart with the pre-order e-mail list. If they overproduced units, they would be stuck trying to sell them off and that would affect their bottom line.

I'm not sure why I should have to be invited to buy a player, "special invitation" indeed. I don't appreciate their rather elite approach to selling a player. I have a Panasonic BD30 which does a nice job with BD and an Oppo 981 for upscaling, it may not be the pinnacle but it is still very good, I just thought it might be fun to have a new player that did play both formats a touch better, but this whole invitation to buy a player, while pseudo standing in line is off putting.

It's called first come, first served. If that's how you define elite, you may want to freshen up on your vocabulary.

This coming from someone who's on the interest list and still patiently awaiting the invitation.

Smooth with 1080p/24 playback yes (DVD) rather run the film judder free if i can.
4:4:4 and 4:2:2.

So both the 09FD and 83 can perform an inverse telecine process on NTSC 60hz DVD film material that enables output at 24hz thus avoiding the additional 3:2 frame repeat motion judder associated film at 60hz (assuming the display properly processes 24hz input).

I'm not sure why I should have to be invited to buy a player, "special invitation" indeed. I don't appreciate their rather elite approach to selling a player. I have a Panasonic BD30 which does a nice job with BD and an Oppo 981 for upscaling, it may not be the pinnacle but it is still very good, I just thought it might be fun to have a new player that did play both formats a touch better, but this whole invitation to buy a player, while pseudo standing in line is off putting.

We've heard reports that there were around 27,000 people signed up to get information about this player between late last year and some time in April. This is a small company that sells direct to consumers over the internet, and for them that's a huge volume to manage. They approved production firmware for this player just a few weeks ago and have been loading that firmware onto players already in their warehouse in California steadily ever since so they can start filling orders. If they were to just open their site to orders now, there would be 27,000 potential customers who would want to know why they didn't have a chance to get one before the initial inventory got snatched up. Once that list is worked through and everyone on it has an opportunity to buy (or to not buy), then it will show up on their online store. It may be off-putting to you, but the alternative would be infuriating to many, many people - and that alternative would still not get you a player for a while, as the rush to buy through the online store would most certainly have already wiped out the initial inventory. (If you doubt that, there's plenty of folks who desperately wanted a 983H last spring and encountered this exact situation - OPPO is learning from past experiences, with a player that is if anything in even greater demand.)

I'm not sure why I should have to be invited to buy a player, "special invitation" indeed. I don't appreciate their rather elite approach to selling a player. I have a Panasonic BD30 which does a nice job with BD and an Oppo 981 for upscaling, it may not be the pinnacle but it is still very good, I just thought it might be fun to have a new player that did play both formats a touch better, but this whole invitation to buy a player, while pseudo standing in line is off putting.

It's a great marketing tool to sell more players. It's human nature for some, to want what they can't have.

Similar to credit cards: Why get a lowly Gold Card if you are one of the few, the lucky, the worthy to be invited to carry a PLATINUM CARD?

Why buy an off the shelf BD Player, available at an authorized dealer or full service retailer, when you can buy a special, super exclusive, limited quantity, INVITATION ONLY BD Player.

With that said and sarcasm aside, based on all I've read at $499.00 this player is worth a try. I'm not waiting in line though. When the mad rush is over and the third or fourth batch arrives from China, I'll order one then. Perhaps by that time, the players will ship with more of the firmware bugs worked out and possibly some hardware refinements?

I've been waiting as well, so I try and look at the positive side. Just about every electronic device I have purchased, has had some kind of assembly line product improvement, made to it over time. Many time these improvements are made with NO official annoucements made by the company as this would get early buyers "mad" if they thought they got an inferior version of the hardware. These small hardware improvements are made if needed as users of the early models report back or in online forums if monitored by the company. Sony is famous for this, meaning "silent" hardware improvements, I've lived through this with Sony's digital video gear. I've read most of the Oppo threads and posts, and some have already reported a "faster" load time with later Oppo 83's, then the first one's shipped. Not having access to any Oppo units, I personally can't say if that is true, though some users have written to Oppo about the faster load speeds, searching the EAP thread, one can find more info, but my point is, NOT being first online for hardware can in many cases be worth the extra wait, not to mention perhaps having a later firmware version already installed, though updating is reportedly very easy, so that's not a big deal in this case, unlike the horrible firmware updating scenerio with my Onkyo 906 AVR. The longer we have to "wait", the better the odds are of getting a more "bug free" hardware wise, unit. Hang in there, sooner or later everyone that wants one, can buy one!

They are reporting faster tray eject time at startup; total boot-up time remains the same, about 11 seconds.

-Bill

Thanks for the extra info, still a "plus" if this was a "hardware" upgrade, and cannot be applied to early shipped models via any future firmware updates. If that is true, that was my point.

No one needs a BlueRay deck more then I do, I have built my new system, first in over 20 years, and the last piece I need is a deck. Other then the waiting, one can only potentially GAIN something, NOT lose anything by getting a later shipped model, in my opinion.

... When the mad rush is over and the third or fourth batch arrives from China, I'll order one then. Perhaps by that time, the players will ship with more of the firmware bugs worked out and possibly some hardware refinements?

Agree with you on that one!

Being myself an Oppo owner for quite a while (981 and 983) + a Panny BD-30 I really don't feel the need to buy another BD player for the time being, but when the time comes, it'll certainly be the BDP-83 though

I expressed interest by signing up on their website a couple of months ago, have called a few times since I am literally 25 miles from their location asking when they thought they might release their BD player. first it was the end of April, now it's the end of May, and who knows, the end of whatever month.

Have you checked with customer service to confirm where you are on the interest list? When I checked, they were able to tell me that I was on the list as of April 22nd. It sounds like you should be somewhere in March if not earlier. If that is the case, you should have received an e-mail giving you the option to purchase.

As I understand the process, you would have had to sign up on the interest list via e-mail, not by phone. If you did via e-mail, did you get a confirmation e-mail back from them?

Check with Oppo customer service about where you are on the interest list. Some sort of snafu may have caused your e-mail address to be dropped or skipped and you may be able to find out that you should be able to purchase the player now instead of later. Certainly would not hurt.

The confusion may be caused by the fact that there were two areas to sign up for. One was the "interest" list to be factored into the EAP, and one was for being kept informed of the unit when it would be released. Only those on the EAP list are getting emails about purchasing the unit.

Conclusion
Both players are great in their own regard. If an individual wants to have excellent basic blu-ray player with topnotch blu-ray picture and don't care about dvds , I'd recommend the Panasonic DMP-BD60. If an individual wants a solid blu-ray player with lots of features with excellent dvd playback and pretty good audio, I'd recommened the Oppo BDP-83.

I have an issue with the above test and conclusion. The results are very subjective since there was no information on how the tests were done and if any calibration disks were used. Very general terms were also used to describe both players

Oppo (Bitstream): Flat sounding to excellent, but it depends on the movie.

Panny (Bitstream): Excellent sound with consistency. No change in dynamics.

Bitstream is nothing but a series of Bytes. So if it is transfering a lossless
codec like Dolby True HD or DTS Master there would be no difference since the
Receiver or Pre-amp would be doing the decoding not the deck.

I have an issue with the above test and conclusion. The results are very subjective since there was no information on how the tests were done and if any calibration disks were used. Very general terms were also used to describe both players

so, admittedly his is just one opinion--id love to hear your comprison so we can add to the database of avs member opinion/comparison/reviews so everyone can be more informed and we can get more and more views expressed.

with that said i am curious what tearing apart means as that sounds quite dramatic...if you could clarify that would be great...

Conclusion
Both players are great in their own regard. If an individual wants to have excellent basic blu-ray player with topnotch blu-ray picture and don't care about dvds , I'd recommend the Panasonic DMP-BD60. If an individual wants a solid blu-ray player with lots of features with excellent dvd playback and pretty good audio, I'd recommened the Oppo BDP-83.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kage

I received my Oppo BDP-83 yesterday and it's the best blu-ray player that I ever used. Its better than my Panasonic DMP-60 that I'm selling on ebay. My other blu-ray players that I had were:
1. Panasonic DMP-BD10a
2. Panasonic DMP-BD30
3. Panasonic DMP-BD35
4. Panasonic DMP-BD60
5. Pioneer BDP-51FD
6. Sony PS3

Now I have to buy a few SACDS and DVD-A, but my local Frys does not have them. What's a good online store to buy SACDs and DVD-A and which titles do you guys recommend?